Good God, it’s Godzilla and he’s bigger, badder and even louder thanks to unnecessary 3D. The film opens on the ever-elegant French actress Juliette Binoche and her husband played by “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston wasted in both their roles as parents to Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Brody who grows up to become a solider, married to Elizabeth Olsen (the often forgotten Olsen sister of the twins) happens to be a nurse in one of the hospitals when all chaos breaks lose in Japan. The upside is Cranston is a scientist so he’s in his familiar surroundings minus the ‘meth’ lab.
Apparently an electric magnetic field is affecting everything, but after a 1/3 of boring story setup, finally enter Godzilla, and (again wasted performance) Doctor (Ken Watanabe) and one of the Admirals (Oscar nominated David Strathairn for Good Night and Good Luck) as their performances mainly mean they shout commands while looking stun-gunned.
We learn that radiation waves were a food source used where they – the two, yes two creatures – lived in the ocean. One can’t be certain why Godzilla himself has a nemesis in a large insect looking rival equally terrifying, except that every time he’s to strike a human, the two creatures manage a tag-team wrestling federation slam and Godzilla breathes fire down the burning creatures mouth.
The army, soldiers, marine, seem hopeless (with little recourse) against the situation and eventually just become backdrop with their shooting guns and ammunition that are barely a threat, let alone a cat scratch to the massive Godzilla who is like God…he’s everywhere and then somehow nowhere.
The movie tries to maintain some original authenticity and ends up feeling like Alien meets an old Bond film…perhaps Dr. No. But the problem is we cared about those characters, while this is a complete mishmash of several films and nothing to emotionally latch onto. One can only imagine the many changes to the script where some studio exec declared,“be sure to end the film where there is a war hero and a small child yelling ‘mommy! Mommy!’ ♛ 1/2